''INTERNAL'  WATERGUARD  WEB SITE LINKS

GENERAL CUSTOMS & EXCISE LINKS

• Cowes Customs - A history of HM Customs in Cowes, also covering other parts of the Isle of Wight.
• HM Customs & Excise - A Rootsweb 'Mailing List' for non-Waterguard discussions. To subscribe, send the revealed e-mail - without altering the subject line or body and with any auto signatures etc. deleted!
• HM Customs & Excise National Museum - The Customs and Excise Museum is part of the Albert Dock on the banks of the River Mersey. The museum and its collections focuses on the port of Liverpool, Transatlantic Slavery, emigration, the Titanic and Lusitania, and the Maritime Archive and Library contains one of the finest collections of merchant shipping records in the UK.
• The National Archives Catalogue - Full details of all the records held for HM Customs & Excise by the National Archives at Kew. Reference CUST. The records contain some Port and Staff Records but are not available 'on line' - personal search only.
• The National Archives - Customs and Excise Officials and Tax Collectors - An official guide to searching The National Archives at Kew for Customs and Excise Officials and Tax Collectors (Inland Revenue)
• The National Archives - HM Customs and Excise - A Departmental history.
• The National Archives - Searching for Customs & Excise Staff - Another guide to searching at Kew.
• The Revenue Cutters Association - Formed in 1978 to bring together the crews of Her Majesty's Revenue Cutters. These are the modern high speed patrol craft crewed by Customs Officers combating smuggling around the United Kingdom coastline.
• The Vigilant Trust - Dedicated to restoring HMCC Vigilant - a steam driven, single screw customs cutter built in 1902 and the only surviving ship of the 1911 Coronation Spithead Review.

COASTGUARD  LINKS

• Coastguards of Yesteryear - A site is dedicated to the Coastguards who lived and worked around the Irish coastline between the 18th and early 20th centuries, including a collection of Coastguard station photographs and facts and figures about the people - births, deaths, census information etc. It also includes some fascinating accounts of bravery during rescues from shipwrecks as well as interesting extracts of shipwrecks and rescues.
• HM Coastguard History - With historic links to HM Waterguard, today's Officers of Her Majesty's Coastguard are benefiting from nearly two centuries of maritime experience of their predecessors.
• Isle of Wight Coastguard Links - A variety of links to a variety of sites dealing with the Isle of Wight - Coastguard and Customs.

SMUGGLING  LINKS

• King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855  by E. Keble Chatterton - The Project Gutenberg eBook.
• Smugglers' Britain - Explore the fascinating story of smuggling in 18th and 19th century Britain, when high taxes led to a dramatic increase in illegal imports. As the 'free trade' grew, smugglers openly landed contraband in full view of the customs authorities: columns of heavily-armed thugs protected the cargoes.
• Smugglers of Cornwall - A feast of stories, articles and pictures of the Coastguard and the Revenue Men in the Cornwall of yesteryear.
• Smuggling in and around Burton Bradstock - The history of Burton Bradstock could not be written without reference to its illegal seafaring association. There are many legends of the activities of smugglers operating in the area, as Burton Bradstock was a key landing place at the centre of Lyme Bay.

MISCELLANEOUS LINKS

• Flags of the World - is a site devoted to vexillology!
• Images of Victorian Piers - Victorian 'grand design' at its very best. A collection of postcard pictures capturing the grandeur of 'a promenade over the water'.
• Ships Pictures - By a marine artist producing original paintings and prints of ships and maritime scenes and specialising in pictures of classic British merchant vessels, in particular Liverpool based shipping lines such as Blue Funnel and Elder Dempster. As an ex-Customs Officer, he also paints images related to UK Customs.
• The Stragglers Skittles Team - The Team's weekly results displayed for the world to see - and chuckle over - as they struggle their way to the bottom of the Clevedon Skittles League!
• The Tomasin Family History Project - Genealogy of the TOMASIN family with roots in Derbyshire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Somerset and Sussex.